Presentations

Abstract

Transitions between speakers in conversation are usually smooth, lasting around 200 milliseconds. Such rapid response latencies suggest that, at least sometimes, responders must begin planning their response before the ongoing turn is finished. Indeed, evidence from EEG suggests that listeners start planning their responses to questions as soon as they can, often midway through the incoming turn [1]. But given substantial overlap in the neural hardware for language production and comprehension, early response planning might incur a cost on participants’ concurrent comprehension of the ongoing turn. Do early responses come at the expense of less careful listening? We performed an EEG study in which participants played an interactive game with a confederate partner. Participants saw two pictures on their screen (e.g., a banana and a pineapple), then heard a (prerecorded) question from their partner, and then responded verbally by naming the correct picture. Participants were made to believe that their partner spoke to them live. Examples of the conditions in the experiment: 1. Early planning: 'Which object is curved and is considered to be fruit/healthy?'; 2. Late planning: 'Which object is considered to be fruit/healthy and is curved?' (response: 'the banana'). The questions were designed such that participants could start planning their response early (Example 1) or late (Example 2) in the turn. Crucially, in another part of the turn, we included either an expected word (e.g., 'fruit') or an unexpected one (e.g., 'healthy') to elicit a differential N400 effect. Our aims were two-fold: replicating the prior planning effect [1] and testing the effect of planning on comprehension. First, our results largely replicated the earlier study [1], showing a large positivity in the ERPs and an alpha/beta reduction in the time-frequency domain, both immediately following the onset of the critical information when participants could have first started planning their verbal response (i.e., 'curved'). As before [1], we interpret these effects as indicating the start of response planning. Second, and more importantly, we hypothesized that the N400 effect (the ERP difference between 'fruit' and 'healthy') would be attenuated when participants were already planning a response (i.e., in early vs. late planning). In contrast, we found an N400 effect of similar size in both the early and late planning conditions, although a small late positivity was only found in the late planning condition. Interestingly, we found a positive correlation between participants' overall response time and the size of the N400 effect after planning had started (i.e., in early planning), illustrating a trade-off between comprehension and production during turn taking. That is, quick responders showed a smaller N400 effect. We argue that their focus on production planning reduced their attention to the incoming audio signal and probably also their predictive processing, leading to a smaller N400 effect. Slow responders focused instead on the audio signal, preserving their N400 effect but delaying their response. Reference [1]: Bögels, S., Magyari, L., & Levinson, S. C. (2015). Neural signatures of response planning occur midway through an incoming question in conversation. Scientific Reports, 5: 12881. Topic Area: Meaning: Discourse and Pragmatics

Abstract

This paper studies communication among deaf sign language users with highly divergent linguistic backgroun
ds
who have no signed or written language in common. It constitutes the earliest, least conventionalised stages of
improvised communication, called ”cross
-
signing” (Zeshan 2015), as opposed to the semi
-
conventionalised
contact language International Sign (
e.g. Supalla & Webb 1995). The specific focus here is on the evolution of the
shared repertoire amongst signers over several weeks as they co
-
construct meaning across linguistic and
cultural boundaries. We look at two possible factors influencing the selec
tion of expressive forms (cf. Tamariz et
al. 2014): content
-
bias (where the more iconically
-
motivated, and/or easily
-
articulated form is selected) and
coordination
-
bias (where participants attempt to match each other’s usag
e). The data set consists of a 320
-
minute corpus of first encounters between dyads of signers of Nepali Sign Language, Indian Sign Language,
Jordanian Sign Language and Indonesian Sign Language. Recordings took place at the first meeting, after one
week, a
nd after three weeks. The participants vary naturally with regard to their linguistic and international
experience as well as their age of sign language acquisition. In addition to spontaneous conversations, we
collected structured dialogues using a Direct
or
-
Matcher task. In this language elicitation game, the Director has
the coloured images and the Matcher has identical but black and white images alongside a set of colour chips
from which they need to select based on the Director’s descriptions. We coded
and examined the various colour
expressions exploited by the participants. The semantic field of colour was chosen for this investigation into the
evolution of shared communication for two reasons: the visual domain of colour retains sufficient levels of
a
bstraction while affording signers with iconic potential.
Participants initially used a range of strategies, including pointing, articulating signs for common objects with
that colour (e.g. referring to a common iconic sign for ‘tree’ and pointing to the b
ase to mean ‘brown’), and their
own native variants. However, three weeks later these individuals all start using the same forms, e.g. the Indian
signer’s variant for ‘green’ and the Nepali signer’s improvised ‘tree
-
trunk’ variant for ‘brown’. The iconic
m
otivation of the latter and the ease of articulation of the former suggest that the content
-
bias is in play. The
coordination
-
bias also seems influential in the group’s eventual selection of one variant (cf. Tamariz et al. 2014).
We explore these and furth
er factors that may affect the two biases in the selection of forms within our data.
We also consider participants’ meta
-
linguistic skills (Zeshan 2013) and fluency in multiple sign
languages (Byun
et al. in preparation).

Abstract

There is some evidence that systems of minimal response (‘feedback’, ‘back-channel’, ‘reactive tokens’) may vary systematically across speakers of different languages and cultural backgrounds (e.g., Maynard, 1986; Clancy et al., 1996). The questions we address here are these: what is the nature of such differences? And what difference do they make to how do these differences affect the interactional system as a whole? We explore this these questions by looking in detail at conversational data from two languages and cultures: Y ́elˆı Dnye, spoken on Rossel Island (Papua New Guinea), and Tzeltal Mayan, spoken in southern Mexico. The Rossel system is gaze-based, interlocutors tend to maintain a high level of mutual gaze, and a large proportion of feedback signals – many nonverbal – occur during the production of the turn that is being reacted to. Tzeltal speakers, in contrast, practice gaze avoidance, and produce very few visual feedback signals, but instead relying on frequent verbal response signals at the end of each TCU, and an elaborate convention of repeating (parts of) the prior turn to display understanding and agreement. We outline the repertoire of response tokens for each language, illustrate their differential usage, and suggest some consequences of these properties of turn-taking systems for interactional style and for on- line processing

Abstract

Along with complexity, the extent of the variability of human language across social groups is unprecedented in the animal kingdom, and we need to understand how this is possible. An underdetermined innate basis is plausible, but there is no consensus about what it is (other than vocal learning and the vocal apparatus), or how it would make it possible to learn varied languages. An alternative, and potentially complementary, explanation suggests that there is a set of communicative instincts and motivations that together make it possible for the infant to bootstrap into the local language, whatever it may be. Some evidence for this is as follows. First, the organization of informal interactive human communication – the core niche for language use – looks much less variable than languages. Thus all language users in this niche take rapid turns at talking even though the speed of this is highly demanding. Similarly, all users avail themselves of the same mechanisms for repairing miscommunication, and use the same restricted system for building coherent dialogues. Second, long before infants have any linguistic knowledge, they take part in ‘proto-conversations’ that exhibit these same universal organizations. Third, where normal spoken language is not accessible to individuals (as when they are profoundly deaf), they still share the same communicative infrastructure. Finally, there are some signs of phylogenetic parallels in other primates. If this is correct, Darwin’s characterization of language as “an instinct to acquire an art” may have its root in communicative instincts as much as specific instincts about language structure

Abstract

In conversation, negative responses to invitations,
requests, offers and the like more often occur with
a delay – conversation analysts talk of them as
dispreferred. Here we examine the contrastive
cognitive load ‘yes’ and ‘no’ responses make,
either when given relatively fast (300 ms) or
delayed (1000 ms). Participants heard minidialogues,
with turns extracted from a spoken
corpus, while having their EEG recorded. We find
that a fast ‘no’ evokes an N400-effect relative to a
fast ‘yes’, however this contrast is not present for
delayed responses. This shows that an immediate
response is expected to be positive – but this
expectation disappears as the response time
lengthens because now in ordinary conversation
the probability of a ‘no’ has increased.
Additionally, however, 'No' responses elicit a late
frontal positivity both when they are fast and when
they are delayed. Thus, regardless of the latency of
response, a ‘no’ response is associated with a late
positivity, since a negative response is always
dispreferred and may require an account. Together
these results show that negative responses to social
actions exact a higher cognitive load, but especially
when least expected, as an immediate response.

Abstract

Recent work in the L&C department in MPI Nijmegen has explored the processing implications of the core ecological niche for language learning and use, namely interactive conversation. It turns out that the rapidity of turn-exchange puts extreme requirements on predictive comprehension and speedy production, reflected e.g. in the trouble kids have to approach adult norms. This strong functional pressure must have implications for language typology. But what exactly? This paper explores what we have recently found out about differing processing in different word orders, and the ways in which the tough processing requirements of conversation can be buffered.

Abstract

Within the confines of this mini-plenary I’ll try to sketch how turn-taking may have played a crucial role
in molding the origins and shape of language. First, I’ll run through some of our recent findings that
reveal the intensive cognitive processing that underlies turn-taking – measuring response-timing, gaze,
the acoustics, breathing, and EEG. These findings suggest that the turn-taking system stretches cognitive
processing to the limit. Asking why the system is the way it is, I’ll advance the argument that language as
we now know it may have emerged from the growth of a rich information-encoding system in the context
of an antecedent turn-taking system, so that increasingly complex messages became squeezed into short
turns, with the consequence of extreme compression, inference enrichment of the Gricean kind, tendency
for fixed word orders, etc. Some support for this account can also be found in ontogenetic and
phylogenetic studies of turn-taking.

Abstract

The diversity of languages contrasts with the universality of much of the communicational infrastructure that makes language possible. An important component of this infrastructure is the turn-taking system of conversation, the Stephen Levinsoncore ecological niche for language use. This system puts intense pressure on language processing: cross-linguistically, we mostly respond within 200 milliseconds, even though language encoding takes at least three times as long. It can be shown using many different measures (e.g. response times, breathing, EEG) that we beat the clock by predicting what the other is going to say and starting production as soon as we can. This raises interesting questions about why this system is the way it is, what functional pressures it puts on language structure and language diversity, and how it originated, which I will briefly address. I will argue that the current system can best be understood within an evolutionary context in which the turn-taking system was antecedent to the complexities of modern language so that increasingly complex messages became squeezed into short turns, with the consequence of extreme compression, inference enrichment of the Gricean kind, a tendency for fixed word orders, amongst other things. Some support for this account can be found in ontogenetic and phylogenetic studies of turn-taking which I will briefly review.

Abstract

In spoken interactions, interlocutors carefully plan and time their utterances, minimising gaps and overlaps between consecutive turns.1 Cross-linguistic comparison indicates that spoken languages vary minimally in their turn timing.2 Pre-linguistic vocal turn taking has also been attested in the first six months of life.3 These observations suggest that the turn-taking system provides a universal basis for our linguistic capacities.4 It remains an open question, however, whether precisely-timed turn taking is solely a property of speech. It has previously been argued that, unlike speakers, signers do not attend to the one-at-a-time principle, and instead form a collaborative turn-taking floor with their interlocutors, thus having a higher degree of social tolerance for overlap.5 But recent corpus analyses of Sign Language of the Netherlands (NGT) have revealed that, although simultaneous signing is more frequent in NGT than overlapping speech in spoken languages, the additional overlap may come as a consequence of having larger and thus slower articulators.6 The beginnings and ends of signed utterances are bookended by preparatory and retractive movements — phonetically necessary articulations that do not add to the interpretation of the utterance.7 When turn timing is calculated on the basis of stroke-to-stroke turn boundaries, NGT turn timing and turn overlap are consistent with documented averages for spoken turn taking.6 This paper presents new experimental evidence supporting the psychological reality of stroke-to-stroke turn boundaries for signers by using an adapted button-press paradigm, originally developed for measuring spoken turn prediction.8 Our results indicate that signers indeed anticipated turn boundaries at the ends of turn-final strokes. These findings are the first to experimentally support the idea that signers use something like stroke-to-stroke turn boundaries to coordinate conversational turns. They also suggest that linguistic processing, represented by participant age and age of acquisition, plays a role in the ability to use precisely-timed turns in conversation.

Abstract

In spontane gesprekken wisselen gebaarders steeds vlug van beurt. Gebarentaalgebruikers moeten daarom steeds op het juiste moment naar de juiste persoon kijken. Hoe voorspellen gebaarders wanneer de beurt gaat wisselen en wie deze overneemt? Wij hebben de eerste vraag onderzocht door verschillende groepen gebarentaalgebruikers (doven en horenden, jong en oud, verschillende regios) te testen. Omdat er in Nijmegen weinig (dove) gebaarders wonen, hebben we dit gedaan in ons lab op wielen: de Gebarenbus.